


psychological explanations

by heartsinhay



Series: HSWC 2013 [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsinhay/pseuds/heartsinhay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short HSWC bonus round fills: In which Aranea Serket reflects on Meenah's optimism, Roswell scientist Jade Harley meets a singularly rude extraterrestrial, and Equius Zahhak annoys Nepeta Leijon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Terezi <3< Vriska, round one

There are a lot of psychological explanations.

Vriska had to kill to feed her lusus, therefore she developed an answering disregard for life and a nagging feeling that she alone was not enough. Terezi, as a clouder, became used to having perfect and intense control. The game rewarded Terezi for masterminding an infinite amount of schemes. The game rewarded Vriska for breaking the rules.

She could talk about the societal influences that determined their actions: how Alternia valued violence, the myth and idealization of the distant ancestor, their planetary leadership's tendency to sacrifice the many for the needs of a few.

She could talk about history, about being doomed to repeat the choices of Mindfang and Redglare, about how she and Vriska were only ever the epilogue to a story long concluded, the culmination of decisions made years before they were born.

She could talk about predestination and doomed timelines, how a million other hers did a million other things, but, in the end, there was only ever one choice.

And, if she was feeling especially brazen, she could talk about biology, about hormones and the tertiary pituitary gland and biological impulses, about the drive to continue the propagation of the species and (very quietly) about the shiver that ran down her spine every time Vriska flipped her hair and smiled that dice-edged smirk.

She could speak until the moobeasts began to attack their prey, unravel herself into explanations and motivations and mitigating circumstances, cast her sight back into the past and justify all the choices that both of them made. She could speak until her voice grew hoarse and ragged and finally stopped for lack of strength, but nothing could explain this:

Terezi Pyrope sits at the edge of a meteor, Vriska's blood staining her polyester skirt cerulean blue.

She lowers her head to a dead girl's lips, and bites.


	2. Disciple <3 Redglare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written in response to hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/8507.html?thread=2087227#cmt2087227. That soundtrack is awesome.

You find the Disciple only after sweeps of searching.

You have the entire resources of the Cruelest Bar at your disposal, a network of contacts and informants comprised equally of legislacerators and revolutionaries, and still: it takes sweeps.

In the end, you track her to the Southern Imperial Continent via ancient, banned journals. You spend a perigee there, hanging around in dusty bars, picking up the occasional criminal, and listening for the Word. It comes in the form of a rustblood with a tattoo that matches your necklace, a highblood whose moirail’s been tracking wildlife disappearance, an old greenblood who lets you trade a parcel full of banned books for a story and a song.

You find her hive, carved into the base of a mountain. You find her, proud and beautiful, Scripture painted onto the walls of her cave and patterned swirls inked into her skin.

“Teach me,” you ask the Disciple, and you become hers.

She’s got first-hand knowledge of the Condesce’s troop movements, fighting style, defenses, and she teaches you war strategies that you thought were lost to the sands of time. Sometimes she brings you close, draws you toward her pile of pelts and animal bone, and whispers the words of the Sufferer into your ear.

In return, you give her news of the outside world. You are not the Empire’s top legislacerator for nothing, and you have access to documents and information long sealed from the general populace’s eyes. You’ve spent all your sweeps as the Sufferer‘s devotee collecting information. You’ve peered through keyholes, eavesdropped behind closed doors, schmoozed your way into private meetings, and everything you’ve assembled goes into a war plan.

The Disciple knew non-violence when the Sufferer espoused it, but she was raised among beasts and remains a beast still. When you speak of troop movements, about supply lines, about revolution, she smiles.

You begin to plan. You know people who swoon at the thought of the Sufferer’s right-hand woman, the first prophet, come to make the revolution strong. You start assembling the bare cogs of a plan: rivalries, power grabs, unstable kismesises, enough to destroy the infrastructure of an empire just as the Disciple’s army sweeps in.

She lets you draw plans on the floor of her cave in a riot of colors, That’s what you think of, in the moments when you don’t know how to keep going: the cave, your plans and her.


	3. Round Three, Terezi<3Vriska<3Rose

They are idling above Dresden, the pre-dawn light turning the sky slowly gray, and Rose takes a moment of rare peace to look, really look, at the perfect uncratered landscape: the tiled roofs, the green-leafed trees, and above, distant, stars unobscured by crashing planes. The silence is almost a palpable thing. If she unlatched her window and stretched her hand out, she imagines that she could touch its side.

The radio crackles.

“I’m boooooooored.”

Vriska. As always. The reason, as it were, that Rose’s moments of peace are rare. That, and the war, of course.

“You’re not dropping those bombs until dawn, Miss Blueberry Blast,” says another voice on the radio, “Commander’s orders.”

“You know, Terezi, you’ve been lording it over all us proles ever since you were promoted,” snipes Vriska, “Real counter-revolutionary.”

“I can smell your envy, Vriska! It smells like--” and here there is a theatrical sniff-- “Kvass and deceit.”

“Still bored.”

Vriska starts her engine, does a lazy loop around you, sailing upside down and backwards in a figure-eight pattern of her very own devising. She’s the best flyer, out of the three of them, even in a Poliparov, but also the most inclined to stupid stunts.

“I’m going to have a real plane once the war’s over,” she says, “None of this crop duster shit. I want a plane that goes fast.”

“When I was younger, I wanted to be a wizard,” Rose replies, idly, making a slow loop of her own, "If all our wishes came true, we wouldn't need Communism."

"If my wishes came true, we'd still need Communism," says Terezi, "Justice for all. Balance. Fairness."

They all go quiet in a moment of reverent patriotic silence, then:

"I'm bored."

"Rose, entertain Private Blueberry. That's an order."

"Private? Hey!"

"In her official capacity as commander, Terezi demoted you. All hail her glorious wisdom and beneficence. Or she'll demote me, too."

Vriska makes a face. Rose does not have to fly back to headquarters and see Terezi to know that she is making a face, too. She does not have a mirror, but she does have the sinking sensation that she is making a face herself.

"Vriska, come out."

"What?"

"Onto the wing, come on out."

She maneuvers her plane so that its wing is nearly touching Vriska's and climbs out herself, tugging down the scarf that keeps her hair out of the wind. She takes a step, and another, and another, until she is standing at the wingtip, feet shifting constantly to keep her balance. Somewhere, back at headquarters, Terezi begins to sing, some large patriotic song redolent with trumpets and cymbals and large drums.

Vriska climbs out of her cockpit, stepping so that her stance mirrors Rose's, their arms stretched out like when they were children playing at being airplanes, and it almost felt like they did not need wood and cloth and metal to fly.

Rose leans forward, and Vriska leans forward. Their lips touch to the sound of Terezi's song.


	4. Dave<3Jade, Prehistory

It is a good day.

She has waded through the mess of vegetation that clogs the floor to find him, club on her tail swinging and flattening the plants behind her. She is certain that he will be near the watering hole, sunning himself on the bank, perhaps.

He enjoys the heat, and it has long been a point of contention between them: she maintains that he will be baked alive by the temperature, his armored plates heating to cook the flesh and skin beneath. It has become pointless to argue, and, besides, it is cooler today than it was the day before, and cooler the day before than it was ten, twenty, days ago, and cooler then than it was many, many days before that.

She does, in fact, find him lazing in the sun, eyes covered by a strategically placed leaf. He feigns sleep or indifference as she approaches, as he always does, even though she can tell he’s paying attention by the way his head shifts slightly, nearly dislodging the leaf. She nudges him with a foot, and then, just as abruptly, turns to leave. After the requisite pretense at apathy, he makes a great show of waking up and just happening to walk in her direction.

She ignores him. She has made a clean kill with her club, and the two of them will feast tonight (because it is night, or almost night, the sky shading a particularly pleasing shade of orange at the horizon), and even though he will not allow himself to show his appreciation now, she knows that he will drop his head to her shoulder later tonight, and twine his tail with hers in thanks.

She leads him to the carcass of a smaller animal, club swinging to deflect any scavengers that might have decided to descend upon it, and they eat. Her tail is still stained with blood; her legs covered in the crusted juices from animals and berries and sundry plants. He has lately taken a dip in the water, and his scales shine.

She looks up. He dares to shuffle over, so that their sides almost touch. She can see the stars, a million blinking points of light in the night sky, one larger, much brighter than usual. She blinks. There is something moving in the air, something bright and huge and beautiful, and she nudges him to alert him to its presence.

It comes closer, blocking out the moon—

Closer, and she can see it burning, sweltering with the heat of the atmosphere—

Closer, and she begins to be alarmed at its size, its rocklike girth obscuring most of the sky—

Closer, and as she turns to run—

It hits, and there is nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dave and Jade are anklyosaurs, and they've just been hit by the Chixclub crater! Congratulations, guys, you're extinct. Written for [this](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/5337.html?thread=1772249#cmt1772249) prompt:  
> Dave<3Jade
> 
> (present day) Gulf of Mexico, 65 million years ago


	5. Dave<3Terezi, the South Sea Bubble

It is an incontrovertible fact that, whenever any member of the public does anything potentially disastrous, there will always be someone to point and laugh. That is what popularized the great comedies from Aristophanes to Shakespeare, why thousands of would-be orators shy away from the podium, and how, indeed, Mr. David Strider of 58 Grosvenor Square keeps himself in powder and linen shirts.

That fundamental human impulse, however, is not enough to prevent creditors from knocking down Mr. Strider’s door at truly abominable hours to demand tremendous sums of money. Newspapermen are notoriously bad debtors, and writers—why, writers are barely a step above actors, and actors, despite the occasional Duchess Liza Farren, are barely a step above anything at all.

Mr. Strider, therefore, must toil away at rhymes and satires at an hour where any sensible person would be out carousing. He lets his candle burn low. He attempts to think of a word that rhymes with “company”. He does not notice Miss Terezi Pyrope preparing to pick his lock and break down his door.

Miss Pyrope, being an experienced thief-taker, is no stranger to the art of covert entry, although her specialties lie in the realm of prevention, not perpetration. By all rights, the office ought to have been empty. By all rights, Mr. Strider ought to have had a candle burning rather than a desperate attempt to cut costs by thinking in the dark. By all rights, Miss Pyrope should have gone undetected.

However. This is what happens instead. Miss Pyrope kicks in the door, spins around with her cane in hand, and spots a very surprised Mr. Strider at his desk. She freezes, but rallies admirably with a forced smile.

“Evening, good sir!”

Mr. Strider rouses himself enough to contribute a muttered “h’llo”. Miss Pyrope is not entirely certain how to continue. She looks at him. He looks at her. They look, in short, at each other.

“You are Mr. D. Strider, are you not?”

“Yes. The junior; my brother is currently in Bath.”

“Well! Mr. Strider, I have a proposition for you.”

“Is it that you tell me who you are and why you are in a formerly locked office? Because I must confess that I am quite indifferent to anything else.”

“Then we are of the same mind, Mr. Strider. My job is to catch criminals, and because I have not seen a more criminal lot than the board of directors of the South Sea Company, I find myself in need of expertise, and turn to this fine news institution to provide me with information that could lead to its board members’ arrests.”

Mr. Strider sits straighter and moves down his glasses so that he can rub his eyes.

“Can’t,” he says, “Journalistic… something. Started with a Y. Integrity, that’s it, never tell anyone your sources and… other sundry rules which I most definitely still recall.”

“Mr. Strider, you are a satirist! Your verses invariably reveal whatever secrets you now so cravenly attempt to protect.”

“Satiristic integrity, then. Can’t say anything without versifying.”

“If you read the papers at all, concentrate on my visage. You must own that you recognize it from the caricatures, and you can trust me when I say, as a premier thief-taker who surpasses even Jonathan Wild, that this is a matter of justice, money, and murder. So, Mr. Strider, I strongly suggest that you begin to versify.”

“You mentioned money.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think, perhaps, that any of these fabled riches could, ah… be slightly redistributed?”

“I’ll pay my usual rates.”

“Do you pay in cash?”

“In this uncertain age, I may be the only woman in all London who does.”

Mr. Strider tips down his curiously tinted eyeglasses so he can give Miss Pyrope an assessing glance over the rims, and, after a long moment, nods.

“Well, then, Miss Pyrope,” he says, “You can call me Dave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [this](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/5337.html?thread=1784281#cmt1784281) prompt:  
> Dave<3Terezi
> 
> The South Sea Bubble, 1720 Great Britain


	6. what happened to nepeta leijon? br6 remix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remix of team [Caliborn <3](http://hswc2013-r1.dreamwidth.org/12638.html#cutid1)

**[Roxy Lalonde, Lieutenant in the Rebellion army and its expert in cyberwarfare. Wrested control of the Cybernetic Army during the later stages of the war.]**  
  
Okay, before we launch into the whole interview, can I talk about Nepeta?  
  
 **Go ahead.**  
  
Thanks, Rosie, you’re the best.  **[clears throat]**  
  
Okay, what I wanted to say about Nepeta was that she was totally presh. And. She was a hero, and. I miss her. Dear, sweet Nepeta. And that’s all I wanted to say about Nepeta. We can keep goin’ now.  
  
 **Do you need a moment?**  
  
Yeah. Y-yeah, I do.  
  
  
  
 **[Vriska Serket, weapons dealer and privateer. Currently considered one of the richest women in the post-Rebellion world.]**  
  
Man! I don’t get why everyone’s so upset about that. I mean, yeah, I made money, but can you blame me? No way, ‘cause I helped all you losers out a whole bunch, too.  
  
You know, that chick, the  **[mimes scratching]**. Ran deliveries for you losers. She got it.  
  
 **Would that be Nepeta Leijon, soldier in the Rebellion?**  
  
Yeah. Shame what happened to her! She was cool. Weird, but at least she gave a girl a break once in a while! Not like you judgmental lameasses. I just did what I had to do to get ahead, you know? You couldn’t have won the war without me. Tell that to Pyrope.  
  
  
  
 **[Aradia Megido, revenant haunting the Felt estate. Originally a key figure in the Rebellion and later its spy.]**  
  
I saw a lot of executions.  
  
 **Why?**  
  
Because I haunt the execution grounds. Because I was executed here. Is that an okay answer? Don’t answer that. I don’t really care.  
  
 **Describe some of the executions.**  
  
They were different. Caliborn experimented a lot. Sometimes he’d laugh. Sometimes he’d try to make them fitting. Tavros was killed by a horse because his horns looked kind of like a bull’s, and a horse also looks like a bull, and I guess because he helped pass along messages using animals, or whatever. Honestly, they didn’t really make any sense.   
  
Caliborn tried to make them scream a lot. Mostly they did. Some cried. I remember one of them went in smiling.  
  
  
  
 **[Terezi Pyrope, Attorney General of the Cruellest Bar, Lord Caliborn English’s favorite lawyer and never officially affiliated with the Rebellion.]**  
  
I had Cronus Ampora—he was Secretary of State— on littering charges—I sniffed around the ground for tangerine cigarette butts every time he left a room, and that’s how he was sentenced. The proposed human breeding program flagrantly flouted existing environmental protection laws, so I shut that down and had its director executed, too.  
  
 **You prosecuted members of the Rebellion before that. Why?**  
  
I was  **[pause, long sniff]**  down with the clown for a while. Even had surgery to heal my eyes. My kismesis, we—Never mind. What changed was I had this friend, Nepeta. She smelled like pesto and basil. We used to roleplay when we were wrigglers, and one day I heard that she was captured while attacking Cybernetic Army headquarters.  
  
 **She was delivering Roxy Lalonde’s virus.**  
  
I didn’t know that. I just knew that it was Nepeta, and Nepeta was harmless and sweet and… I guess that woke me up a little.  
  
 **You sliced out your own eyes.**  
  
Yeah. I had to get back to being myself.  
  
The thing is, I don’t think she was trying to wake  _me_  up. She was sending a message to her moirail, and it didn’t get through.  
  
  
  
 **[Equius Zahhak. Commander of the Cybernetic Army under Lord Caliborn’s command. Currently awaiting trial for genocide.]**  
  
Perhaps I could have contained the virus by cutting off the mainframe, but I was. Distracted. For obvious reasons.  
  
 **What would you say to her, if she was here?**  
  
I— **[pause, deep breath]**  Nothing. I had no excuse.


	7. Meenah/Aranea br6 remix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original fill by [Credibilityproblem](http://credibilityproblem.tumblr.com/post/52639505078/my-optimism-wears-heavy-boots-and-is-loud-henry).

You’re all excited about the game, but Meenah is thrilled.

She’s the one who persuades you to play it. Porrim would say that she badgered you into it, but you wouldn’t go so far. It’s just that her enthusiasm is infectious, all big smiles and conspiratorial winks and faux nonchalance, and every single one of your friends was drawn in. Later, your sprite will tell you that it was destiny, that you and your friends were born to play SGRUB, that it was always Skaia’s plan, but you’ll always think that it was her.

Even from the start, she thought you were all going to win, that you were all brave enough or strong enough or smart enough to push past imps and denizens. She had faith in you. You wish everyone else could understand that, especially when Latula starts talking about the “uncool rivalries” Meenah pushed everyone into, especially when you see Damara floating around.

She thought you were strong. She thought you were brilliant. And even when she called you boring or ignored your attempts at exposition, she trusted you enough to never doubt you’d make it through. You know now that she did nothing but make trouble, but every time she shot you one of those confident smiles, you felt like everything would be okay. You wonder if everyone else felt it, too. You hope not.

Meenah always saw the best in things. That was the most amazing thing about her, better, even, than her courage and her strength. You don’t think you ever told her that, so you make up for it by telling everyone else, corralling anyone who’ll listen: Latula and Kankri and even Cronus, once, when you were really desparate.

You make a monument of her from words. Here is a story about the time you thought you could never grow into your role as Sylph, and how Meenah believed in you nonetheless. Here is a digression about how she made you feel invincible, about how, even before she went God Tier, she was nearly invincible as well. Here is a story that everyone knows: how even after you discovered that you were never going to win the Game, Meenah did not lose hop.

She was your optimism, and, now, as you sit by her tower, your eyes blank with the reality of death, you are quite certain that she’s going to wake up very, very, soon.


	8. Equius/Nepeta br6 remix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remix of [this](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/3493.html?thread=271013#cmt271013) fill by seiryunohoshi.

He keeps apurrlogizing.

It’s getting on your nerves: “sorry” while climbing Green Teapot Mountain, “how much I deeply regret” while sliding down Sugar Cube Mountain XXVI (or at least you think, you could never keep the numbering straight) and “how could I ever make it up to you” down near Chameowmile Lake. Your shoulders hunch with the tension of not turning around and hissing, one of the good full-throated hisses that would puff up your furr, if you were a cat (which you are, so it does).

Eventually, you stuff a sugar cube in his mouth.

“Mmph,” he says, coughing (it is a very large cube), “Nepeta, I’m a hundred percent sure that this is absolutely terrible for my teeth.”

“Whatever,” you say, sticking your tongue out and crossing your eyes for emphasis, “It’s not like they’re not already broken, ‘cause you keep accidentally biting too hard. Just stop apologizing already! I furgave you ages ago, and, besides, it’s annoying and I’m trying to concentrate. I mean, clawncentrate.”

You are. You’re (nominally, at least) trying to find the Lost Wheat-Based Baked Good Mine of LOLCAT. It’s different now that you don’t have Pounce or your consorts (they don’t usually turn up in dream bubbles, which is sad because they were adorable and you miss them very much) to guide you around, and everything in the Land of Little Cubes and Tea smells basically like, well, little cubes and tea. There isn’t even any wind. You’re navigating mostly by memory and the faintest whiff of whichever strain of tea is closest, and anyone who wasn’t such a powerful huntress wouldn’t be able to, so there.

“Nepeta,” says Equius, faintly scandalized (good, he’s admonishing you again, that’s always a good sign, even when he’s being stupid about it), “I am attempting to make amends.”

“I don’t need you to!” you practically hiss, “I—we’re meowrails! It doesn’t matter, because we’re us and I still pity you lots and lots and—I knew it might end up like this when we started, you and a highblood like that, and we still started, and—“

He doesn’t trust himself enough to hug you, but he hovers his hand above your back and you lean into it, like you always do and like you always did before.

“I’ll stop apologizing,” he says, quietly.

“Good,” you say, and brighten, springing to your feet, “Besides, I’m the one who’s supposed to protect you!”

“What? Nepeta, that is preposterous—“

“No, it’s not, it’s the truth, I’m the wild, strong, feral huntress that needs to be pacified—“

“Nepeta, my duty is to protect—“

“—Is to be protected by your mighty moirail, the lioness, Nepeta Leijon!”

“No, it is not.”

“Yes, it is!”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Um, yes, it is!”

You’re on more comfortable ground here. You say yes really loudly and then he says no really loudly and then you try saying yes really really quietly to trick him, but he knows that you’re trying to trick him and says no, even quieter, and then you put your hand over his mouth and say yes, so you can get the last word.

He lets you have it, of course. He always does.


	9. Jade/Kanaya br6 remix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original fill by Sfingosella [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/872444).

It takes months before NASA trusts you enough to let you meet the rest of the extraterrestrials, and even then, you’re pretty sure they don’t actually trust you. It’s not your fault they can’t find anyone more brilliant than you are, and Karkat likes, anyway, which seems to make a world of difference.

The Roswell facility is just him and one other E T., not counting the other researchers (which he doesn’t). He introduces you to her himself.

“Kanaya,” he says, “This is Harley. She’s marginally less dimwitted than all the other nookmunchers that try to stick thermometers up our rectums.”

Kanaya flicks a disdainful glance at you. She is tall, practically statuesque, hair trimmed hosrt in such a delicate curve that you just know a NASA scientist didn’t cut it. After barely a moment, she turns away.

“Oh,” she says, flatly, “Another pink blunt-toothed omnivore.”

“Human.”

“I have used my facial muscles to elevate one of my upper orbital hair deposits, in a way that communicates both a lack of understanding and a definite presence of contempt.”

“We’re called humans! I think you’ve been here long enough to learn—“

Karkat shepherds you away very quickly, before you can finish the end of your sentence, and it takes twenty minutes and five hastily toured rooms for you to think to ask.

“Is she always like that?”

“Argumentative? Only around—“

“No,” you say, thinking of the way she folded her hands together, like she was trying to clutch something to herself and not let go, “Alone.”

 

The next time you’re at Roswell, you ask her if she wants any magazines.

“What,” she says. She just stares, and you fidget a little, twisting a strand of your hair around and around your index finger.

“Or, I don’t know, some books from the library or something.” She stares some more. The hair around your finger is completely coiled, and you give it one last abortive tug.

“It’s just. I grew up on an island, so I know how boring things get, when. When you’re all alone.”

“Oh,” she says, then quieter, “Oh, you pity—Ahem. I would enjoy books about Earthen clothing trends, primitive as they are, as well as, ah. Blood-drinking and mysteriously attractive creatures of the night, if your culture has them, although it may not be advanced enough.”

“Okay,” you reply, and stand there like a doofus for at least a whole minute.

“Jade,” she says, after the whole minute, so sudden that you start, and then, very slowly, as if exercising a muscle she hasn’t flexed in a real long time, “Thank you.”

The effort turns her cheeks quite green.


End file.
